


You Can't Help Yourself

by abbichicken



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Comedy, Crack, Cute, Domestic, Jealousy, Kink Meme, M/M, Magic Carpet, Mansion Fic, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-19
Updated: 2011-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-21 13:50:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbichicken/pseuds/abbichicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: <i>Everyone has to notice that Erik is a very handsome man. So naturally there'd be crushes, harmless flirting, etc. Charles is apparently the jealous type, which nobody expects, so at first everyone is confused by the random headaches, his acting kind of weird, and so on.</i></p><p>Notes: Starts serious, gets silly, flits around between the two a bit and ends up <i>very</i> silly. There are I Love Yous and also there's occasional capslocking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Help Yourself

"Charles?"

Nothing. Charles continues to stare at the kitchen table.

"Charles!"

"Oh, sorry. Miles away. Sorry. Is everything okay?"

"Sure it is, I was just asking, egg or cheese?"

"Oh. Cheese. Thanks, Raven. Very kind."

"Are you okay? You seem...I don't know, distracted."

"Hold on, egg or cheese what?"

"Sandwiches! It's lunchtime. Come on, really...is there something bothering you?"

Charles shakes his head, and returns his gaze to the table. "Still cheese, though," he adds, absently.

Rolling her eyes, Raven commences the making of lunch.

She's got one hell of a headache, and is trying hard to ignore it. Came on about an hour ago. Alex slipped and cracked his head on the coffee table; for some reason, this appears to have given Raven sympathy pains. She thinks this is pretty damn unfair, because Alex got Erik stroking his head and being all caring and kind and so on, and she...obviously didn't. She's pretty sure Alex has a dramatic, schoolgirl-style crush on Erik; he can't seem to get enough of being around him, so seeing him being all _wounded_ and cared for, and sucking up to it so much that surely Erik knows what he's doing, encouraging him (which is just wrong, really, so wrong, Alex is a _child_ , for goodness' sake) and it's just so frustrating.

And now she's stuck with this.

And Charles is being weird, so he's even less fun than usual.

And Alex gets to lie down with a bag of ice on his head and skip the afternoon's training.

Just not on, she thinks. Just not on.

She sighs, melodramatically.

Charles still doesn't even look at her.

Charles walks into the lab to check on Hank, because he doesn't quite trust Hank with all this science...very clever boy, wonderfully clever boy, but there is something slightly disconcerting about the idea of his injecting Raven with _things_ , so it's...only fair to keep on top of it. Plus he wants to sneak a look at some slides with the microscopes.

Charles loves microscopes. Hank brought - stole? - some amazingly adept models with him.

As he approaches the door, he hears...laughter.

Loud, rolling laughter.

Vibrating laughter.

Erik's. Laughter.

Charles grinds his teeth - terrible, terrible habit, can't break it for anything; sometimes it's the only thing that stops him from blinding everyone in a fifty foot radius with telepathic fury - and presses his ear to the door.

He can't understand anything. Too mumbled.

A couple of bangs and crashes and furniture moving around.

 _What the hell are they doing?_

He can't bring himself to take a look - Erik has already learned to recognise the slight _poke_ that ripples just behind the eyes when Charles does his mind-fuckery, and the last thing he wants is for Erik to think he's spying on him.

Charles would never do that.

Never.

Definitely not.

Something drops, and scatters.

More laughter.

This is increasingly unfunny.

Charles imagines them fucking on the table, science and technology scattering, shattering.

Cold sweat prickles across his back as his cheeks fire a hot blush of anger and unpleasant truth.

"Have you seen the Professor?" Sean asks Erik, out for a stroll in the garden, enjoying the warm afternoon air, and what was, for once, comparative peace and quiet, perhaps due to Alex being temporarily indisposed.

"Not lately," Erik replies, calmly, mildly bemused.

"I think maybe you should go find him," Sean offers.

"And what makes you say that?"

"Yeah...I just think you should."

"That's not a reason. Forgive me, you seem like a nice, if loud, young man, but I don't do things for no reason, even for nice young men."

Sean really, really wants to say _that's not what I'd heard_ but that might not be as funny out loud as he thinks it is in his head, and Erik might...staple him, or something else mildly painful and metallic. So he just coughs, and says, instead, "Okay. It's just...he's been being a bit weird? And he listens to you."

Erik frowns.

Inside, he's smiling, because he likes the idea that someone like Charles would listen to someone like him.

"Weird, you say."

Sean shifts from foot to foot and screws up his face, exhibiting the textbook signs of discomfort and dithering over whether or not to get to the point.

"Please, out with it!" Erik insists, half-concerned, a quarter impatient, and the remainder just..awkward.

"I don't want to...I don't think it's my place to..."

"Just finish any one of these sentences."

"He had a bit of a...go at Hank."

"What?"

"Look, I wasn't there, I don't know, exactly, but Raven said this morning that he was being a bit off, and then I went down just now to get Hank to make an adjustment to this thing he's been working on for me and then Charles comes storming out the lab all red in the face and Hank, well, he wouldn't say what it was, but I think - don't tell him I told you, he'd kill me - I think he'd been crying."

"What?"

"I don't think I can be any clearer than that."

"No, no, not...never mind. Do you know what any of this is about?"

"No idea. No-one does. Everyone's a bit tired, I guess, maybe it's something to do with that. Keep getting these headaches..."

"Maybe you should take a break from the screaming for the rest of the day, then!" Erik suggests, ever-helpful. "Okay. Thanks, Sean. Don't worry. I'll find him, and see what's going on."

Erik puts a hand on Sean's shoulder; a gesture intended to reassure.

From the upstairs window, Charles seethes at the sight of yet another display of Erik's terrible, lascivious duplicity.  
_______

Three nights ago, Erik went out. He didn't say where he was going. Just that he was going out. Took the car and left.

Charles didn't ask where.

He doesn't know what time Erik got back.

Three nights ago, Charles was not in this frame of mind.

Four nights ago, they had beautiful, back-breakingly good sex. The kind of sex that deserves a firework display, and maybe a parade or two. At the very least, a standing ovation.

So, when the next night, Erik didn't seem to want a repeat performance, the seeds of doubt were sown.

Two nights ago, Charles began to put two and two together.

Erik's been spending time with _other people_.

Maybe that was it, maybe, Charles thinks, things were too good, maybe Erik has had enough of him.

Perhaps it's only a conquest, for Erik, if you say 'I love you' at the end of the night, which Charles did, which Charles couldn't help doing, okay? His body just...took over, and he was saying it before he even knew his own mind.

Erik had looked pleased.

Another notch on the bedpost, he was probably thinking.

Charles contorts events _marvellously_ to fit his worst suspicions.

Charles had felt so close to him then that now, only a hundred or so hours on, the distance between them seems achingly gaping.

It's not like he's ever felt this way about anyone before.

It's not as if he's the jealous type.

He isn't the kind of man who would insist his partner behaved this way, dressed that way, spoke only to approved parties.

So he definitely doesn't deserve to be treated this way. Not by Erik, who doesn't quite seem to understand that he's behaving utterly inappropriately with kids, who seems to be going out of his way to behave suspiciously, who's probably, now Charles comes to think of it, sneaking out to that dive in town and having sordid threeways with the barmaid with the limp and that broad blond man who's always hanging onto her, fuck, that must be it, that would explain why Erik has been looking so tired lately.

God, he's sleeping with _everyone_.

Everyone, who, for the record, Erik is _not_ sleeping with, is afflicted by that deep, worrying sensation you get when the the air gets thicker, and the sky gets darker, and there's electricity all around, but the thunderstorm just won't break.  
________

"Charles?" Erik knocks on the door for a third time. "You know I could just open this, even if you've been so foolish as to lock it? Unless you've put the dresser in front of the door, of course, although I doubt you'd manage it on your own..."

Charles wishes Erik would stop talking. It's not helping matters, and he seems to think there's some kind of value in his cruel attempts to be amusing.

He doesn't want to let him in.

Charles is horribly aware of the effect Erik has on ~~everyone~~ him, and knows that he can't deliver the bollocking that Erik so deserves if they're eye-to-eye.

He debates a telepathic dressing down.

But then again, Erik would get away without seeing the hurt he's caused. Charles could convey this, if he wanted to, with his mind, but that would be some kind of cheating. Erik should have to face up to this.

"Look, please. It doesn't matter what it is, you can tell me. I am capable of personal conversations, Charles. I can keep a secret, if need be."

 _Too fucking right you can_ , Charles thinks. _That's the problem. I don't trust you as far as I can imagine you being thrown by a mutant much stronger than I am._

"Come on. Look, if you won't say anything, I'll have to come in. You might be unconscious - I know you're not because I can _feel_ you seething in there about something, yeah, Charles, I know you better than you think, already - but if you won't say anything, well, I might be wrong, and then I'd feel absolutely terrible for not having come to your aid..."

Erik leans against the wall, feeling for all the world like if he'd wanted this much drama, he might as well have fulfilled Raven's unrealistic desires.

It's unfortunate that, just as he's having this thought, just as he's remembering the sight of her playing I'll-be-anything-you-want in his bed, Charles chooses then to push into his mind.

A couple of things go bang and crash in Charles' room.

The definitive sound of books hitting the floor follows them.

Erik hears reverberations of _with my SISTER?_ before Charles flings the door open and is there, hair all over the shop, eyes red from god only knows what, unshaven as if it'd been days, rather than hours, since he last looked in the mirror.

"WITH MY SISTER?"

"No, no, nothing happened, Charles, please, come on, go back inside, I think we need to talk..."

"SHE'S BLUE."

"Er, yes. I know."

"AND YOU SLEPT WITH HER."

"No, I didn't, but -"

"She's my SISTER."

"Okay. Come on. Back inside with you."

One hand on Charles' back, Erik propels him back through the door, closing it behind him.

He has a very accurate feeling that Raven, Hank, Alex and Sean are all hiding somewhere very close by, attempting eavesdropping, and he thinks that none of them need to hear whatever the hell this is about to turn into.  
______________

"I don't get why we're still here," Alex says, doing a fine impression of stereotypically sulky, bored teenager. "It's not like we can hear anything."

Raven thwacks him with the back of her hand.

"You could've just stayed lying down like Erik told you to, but no, no, you wanted to be involved. Stop complaining. We're here," she says, nestling closer to the wall as if somehow in danger of being seen by the people who are enclosed in a room around the corner, "because we care."

"That's just it," Alex retorts, "I don't think I do. Or at least, I don't think I understand what exactly it is I'm supposed to care about."

"There's something up with the Professor," Sean offers, "and he had a go at Hank, and he doesn't seem to care that we all need a break, I mean, I've been feeling rough all day -"

"Me too," Raven agrees.

"Yeah, my head's still killing me from before," Alex concedes.

Hank frowns. "I've had a headache myself. I took some aspirin, but, strangely, it doesn't seem to be offering any relief."

Raven has a little lightbulb moment, but doesn't bother sharing it.

"Even so," Alex continues, "we can't hear anything. Can't we just...I don't know...look into their minds?"

"Which part of _Charles is the telepath_ isn't making sense to you?"

"So annoying. I wish I was the telepath. Stomach lasers just don't cut it when it comes to this day-to-day stuff. But anyway, what's this about? What did he say to you, Hank?"

"I...don't want to talk about it," Hank says, looking down at his feet.

At that point, Charles has the revelation of _with my SISTER?_.

And everyone 'hears' it.

Hank, Alex and Sean turn to Raven, expressions covering hurt, amused and confused, respectively.

"Oh, no..." Raven says, voice cracking a little. She squeezes her eyes tight shut for a moment, desperately trying to project to Charles somehow, _no, no, that didn't happen_...

When she was little, she felt sure that she and Charles had a connection, that they could have some special two-way communication, just because she loved him so much.

A small part of her still wishes she believed that.

"I wish Moira was here," Raven mutters, ignoring the boys. "I bet she'd understand."  
_______________

"It's not what you think, Charles..."

"I CAN SEE YOU KISSING HER. YOU KISSING MY SISTER. I CAN SEE IT."

"Please, stop shouting. This isn't like you."

"Fucking right it's not like me. I trusted you. _I fell in love with you_."

"You make it sound like such a terrible thing."

" _I came on your face and then you kissed my sister with that mouth_."

Erik really doesn't have an answer for that, because, well, that is true.

Raven is _fluorescent_ , almost literally, gleaming blue, yellow eyes flashing panic. She feels sick, sicker still that she can't tell if the nausea is from revulsion or arousal, or both, or what that might say about...everything...and suddenly she is overwhelmingly glad she has no mental hotline to Charles, who she should really, really go and scream at to shut the fuck up, if she could only move, at all, which she can't, because she is utterly frozen to the spot in a spiral of nightmarishly convoluted drama.

None of the others are looking at her now.

Charles really doesn't mean to be broadcasting this, he doesn't, but he's furious, and has less than any interest in keeping his terribly unjust situation quiet.

"Once you'd got what you wanted from me, you thought you could just, what? Go out there and bed anyone you liked? Whilst coming home to sleep under _my roof_?"

"What?"

"The barmaid!"

"The...who?"

"I KNOW WHAT YOU DID WITH THEM."

"Oh fuck, what are you on about? Would you at least just sit down?"

Charles is pacing in figures of eight, and Erik is rotating uselessly, trying to keep eye contact with him.

"I've seen the way people look at you, Erik, I'm neither blind nor stupid. I know how easy it must be for you to jump into bed with anyone and everyone you take a fancy to, and I'm sure that you're above that old-fashioned idea of fidelity, with your polo necks and your fashionable shoes, why else would you spend so long on your appearance every single day, hey?"

"You're not making any sense at all. I'm concerned you might have been possessed. Perhaps this is an attempt to infiltrate our ranks, Charles, have you considered this?"

"No-one infiltrates me!"

"Erm, okay."

"IT WOULD JUST BE NICE TO HAVE KNOWN THAT YOU WANTED AN OPEN RELATIONSHIP. AND THAT YOU ARE A SLUT, ERIK. A TERRIBLE SLUT."

That's it, really.

Erik bursts out laughing.

And he doesn't mean to, and there is a valid and mildly awful point on the Raven thing, but this level of fury and shouting is...it's just funny, from Charles' lips. From under all that tweed. And it's sweet, too.

"Oh how _dare_ you laugh at me..."

Erik is in an actual _fit_ of giggles.

"Get out."

The sour, disappointed tone of Charles' voice ought to cut through the laughter, but Erik is just too far gone. Perhaps they both need a little time to compose themselves.

He just manages to get out "I'll...be back..." between splutters and breathless peals, and leaves, stopping at the stairs to bend double in paroxysms of mirth.

Charles mutters darkly, slamming the door behind Erik, "Not if I have anything to do with it."

It's just getting worse, and worse.  
______________

Erik is folded over the kitchen table, his face in his hands, just, shaking with laughter.

Raven comes up to him and kicks him in the back of the leg.

Erik chokes a bit, and swirls around.

"What was that?"

"None of this is funny. None of it."

"A...ah."

"That's right Erik. Ah."

Erik is surprised to find that he's actually rather frightened of Raven at this moment in time. Her blue form doesn't quite seem to fit the clothes she'd been wearing (despite his wise words, Raven decided that, tiger or otherwise, it was a bit boring having every man in the house direct their words at her chest), and her eyes are virtually aflame.

Erik swallows. "Erm, how much of what just happened...got outside the room?"

"Thanks to my _darling_ brother, everyone thinks you slept with me."

"We slept together, surely. Linguistics. You were the one who turned up in my bed, after all."

Raven kicks him again, harder, in the shin.

Erik does calming hands. "I'm sorry, it's not fair of me to try to joke."

"That was you trying to joke?"

"I...anyway. I'll explain. To everyone, to anyone. But I need to explain everything to Charles, first. As you heard, he's...got some very strange ideas."

"I didn't realise you were..."

"Unless you finish that sentence, I really don't know how to reply."

"With Charles."

"It's only been a couple of weeks. It didn't seem worth making an announcement."

"It would've been nice if you had."

"I'm not really the...announcement type. Some things are private."

"You might want to consider a boyfriend who doesn't let rip audiovisually when he has a bad day, in that case."

"Yeah. I didn't really...know about that. I thought he had more self-control."

Raven makes a sucking-through-teeth sound, as if that was hyper/hypocritical of Erik, and Erik lets it go, because, well, again, Raven's not someone he wants to argue with at the moment.

She looks like she could use a hug, and a bit of reassurance, but Erik really doesn't want to end up in any more compromising positions, lest Charles pick that moment to decide it's time to try and reach out, as it were.

"Why don't you go and sit with Hank for a bit?"

"He won't talk to me. He won't actually look at me."

"Because of..."

"What do you think?"

"Ah. This has really screwed things up, hasn't it?"

Raven smiles, just a bit. "This is why I always preferred it when it was just the two of us. People always get in the way."

Erik's smile is sad, and understanding. "Yeah."

"I'm going to go and...go for a run, or something. Let off some steam."

"Good idea. Very productive of you."

"Just one more thing."

"Anything."

"You aren't cheating on him, are you? You aren't...sleeping around?"

Erik runs a hand through his hair, and looks straight into her eyes.

"I'm really not. Charles is the first person I've been with in five years, I don't mind telling you, and I don't have any intention of being with anyone else at all. He's more than enough."

Raven blushes; purple through the blue of her skin. "I don't think I need any more than that."

Erik nods. "And anyway. If I were cheating on him, I'm sure you'd try to kill me?"

"Damn right."

"Good girl."

Raven still feels a bit of a flutter in her chest, and a crunch in her guts, when he speaks to her like that.

"Hope this is all fixed by the time I get back!" she says, as she leaves.

"In that case, maybe you should try a marathon..." Erik calls after her.

Erik makes coffee, and cleans up the dishes. He enjoys a bit of domesticity here and there. There's something luxurious about cleaning things. About knowing you're going to be in one place for at least long enough for it to require doing, and to be able to choose to do it, rather than to have to, by default.

He also likes to feel useful.

And, okay, he doesn't trust any of the boys to clean things _properly_.

But still.

He doesn't mind housework at all.

He mulls over the situation quietly to himself. He wonders who the barmaid Charles was talking about was. He wonders if Charles himself has some long-standing affair going on with her, and is paranoid about losing both his partners to each other.

Idle thoughts, going nowhere.

He whistles old, old tunes to himself, and when he turns around to put a glass in the cupboard and practically hits Hank in the face with it, it's such a shock, it's all he can do to stop himself from flattening him.

"Just...don't just creep on me, Hank. It's not a good idea."

Hank nods. Silently.

And stands there.

"Did you have something to say?"

"It's about before."

"With Charles?"

"Mm."

"And...since we all heard..."

"That, yes."

"I think I understand the problem."

"I think I'm getting there myself, but please, enlighten me."

"Well...the thing is..."

Hank looks wonderfully, hopelessly uncomfortable.

"The quicker you say it, the quicker it's done."

"He thinks you had sex with me in the lab this morning."

Erik isn't sure how much coughing, laughing and spluttering he can take; he's never had so much cause for it all in one day.

"With...you? What, when I came in for my uniform measurements?"

"Yes."

"That's...okay. I mean, really, what is wrong with him? Not that you're not a delightful catch for the right person, Hank, I'm sure, and no offence, but this is getting out of hand."

"I think he thinks you're...with all of us."

"Oh fucking hell. Ah, language."

"We aren't children, you know."

"Oh, I do definitely know. It's a point I made to Charles, just the other day, as it happens. So, in your adult capacity, and as someone who has to live with both of us for at least the foreseeable future, do you have any suggestions as to how I might square this terrible, ridiculous state of affairs?"

Hank bites his lip, and his eyes twitch a bit, as he thinks.

"You know," he says, after a lot of thought, and with the oddest of smiles creeping across his lips, "I think I actually might."

"Excellent!" Erik says. "Do tell."

Hank's smile broadens as he says, "You'd have to trust me...it's a bit... _strange_."

"Well, as you now know, _strange_ doesn't bother me at all."  
____________

Charles has, more or less, calmed down. He's lying on the bed in his room, has cried, just a little, from frustration, and anger, of course, from the manly emotions, and from nothing at all like sadness or woe or torment that his perfect new relationship has already gone to the dogs, because he went and picked the wrong man, again.

What was he thinking? Obviously someone who looks as great as Erik couldn't settle for someone like him. Obviously.

He wonders what Erik's up to now.

Probably having a foursome with Raven, Hank and Alex. Oh, and Sean. A fivesome. That's group sex, really, isn't it? Disgusting. How could he? And under this very roof, right in the middle of this argument...thoughtless, heartless bastard...

To find out exactly why Charles is tormenting himself like this, you'd have to do all sorts of terribly dull scrambling through his memories and his mind. And he isn't generally the jealous type, it's true, it's just that he's really not coping well with, essentially, every second at which he is not touching Erik's naked body.

It is, simply put, obsession.

He can't help himself.

And, never having had to worry about reining in his thoughts and feelings before - because they've never been so incredibly strong and so nauseatingly wrapped up in his own neuroses - he has had precisely no practice at all the thoughts and feelings most people get out of the way mid-puberty. Poor Charles. Poor, ridiculous me, Charles thinks to himself, pulling individual hairs out and studying them for traces of grey.

But Erik, whilst Hank has been tinkering away with this and that and the other thing, making final adjustments and having him do trial runs and suchlike, has come to another conclusion.

It was something Raven had said, about how everything was easier when it was just the two of them. It occurs to Erik that, for perhaps more of Charles' life than he had come to think about, Charles has been alone. He gathers, from seeing Charles try to show off his "magnificent, super-effective" pick-up lines on their mutant-collecting trips, that Charles has had plenty of forays into the world of human relations, and, from the way Charles behaves in bed, he hasn't exactly been lacking in 'company', as and when he's required it.

But...has he ever had more than a one, or perhaps two-night stand? It doesn't seem that way. The way he gets nervous when Erik tries to talk to him about the future, the way he shies away from making plans about the way their world could be...Charles is the type to make things hard for himself, Erik thinks, because he doesn't know how to do it the easy way.

They're both right, really.

Not that it matters, now.

Charles is about to forget everything that's been worrying him.

He's just wondering how he can get out of this embarrassingly complicated mess of a situation, and how he can get Erik to want him back after the things he's said to him, when, suddenly, Erik's face appears at the window.

Charles rubs his eyes.

The scene remains the same.

Erik is reaching forwards, carefully, to knock on the window.

He catches Charles' eye, and beckons him. He doesn't, strangely, look at all angry.

Charles comes to the window.

He gasps with just a hint of a squeal at the end. Erik laughs.

He opens the window.

Erik gestures around him.

"Would you care to come for a ride on my magic carpet?" he asks, absolutely politely, perfectly deadpan.

Erik is sitting on a paperthin, perfectly square sheet of metal, bent, aerodynamically, at two sides.

Charles is too open-mouthed even to say "ohgodyes _somuchhowdidyouknow_?!"

Erik helps him out of the window, and, with only minor turbulence, as Erik reminds himself that he is the only thing stopping them from crashing to a terrible gravel-based death, they arrange themselves neatly, lying down on their fronts, as Erik tries to maintain a graceful, rather than nauseating, motion forwards.

"Where are we going?" Charles asks.

"Mostly just around the garden, I think, because, as magic carpets aren't yet a regular form of transportation in America, I think we might get spotted."

Charles sighs. "That's a shame. Do you think one day the time will come when magic carpets have their place alongside scooters, biplanes, zip-wires, and other small metal-based means of travel?"

Erik nods, sagely. "I hope so, Charles. I hope so. If I have anything to do with it, we'll always travel by magic carpet."

"I do love you."

"Good."

"And I'm sorry."

"You do understand that I haven't slept with anyone but you for a very, very long time? There's only one slut on this carpet, and certainly it isn't me..."

Charles hits him, firmly, on the shoulder.

Erik makes the carpet sideswipe a tree.

Charles clutches at him and squeaks.

"But really," he says, breathless and beaming from the excitement, "how did you know?"

"Hank told me that you're very fond of something called _The Phoenix and the Carpet_."

Charles smiles, nostalgically. "Oh, yes, yes I am. I used to make Nanny read it to me all the time. Have you read it?"

"I can't say I have."

"I will read it to you. With all the voices, and everything."

"I may yet look forward to that."

"It's a classic. It'll change your life."

"We're on the cusp of nuclear war. Our lives might change drastically at any moment. Try not to waste any more of our time together believing the worst of me?"

Charles views his home from a distance, and Erik from exceptionally close-up.

He is a fool, and he knows it. He tells Erik so.

But he is also lucky, and he is also _on a fucking flying carpet_ and no-one has ever done anything so wonderful and magical for him before.

He tells Erik that, too.

"You did kiss my sister, though."

"Look into my head, Charles. It was for her, not me. That complete lack of arousal? You have nothing to fear."

"Oh good."

"I hope so. I would swear, just for a moment, that you were quite interested in that memory of mine."

Charles swallows. "I think you're just trying to wind me up, now."

"You're really rather attractive when you're angry. I didn't think you had it in you."

Charles clears his throat, and tries not to look so overtly flattered. "Hang on a minute, though. What about the other night?"

"What other night?"

"When you went out. Took the car."

"Oh, that. I went to get a haircut. And a new jacket. And some whisky. You didn't notice? I thought it was rather nice."

Charles frowns. Now that Erik mentions it...no, he didn't notice. It's true, he thinks, he is a _useless_ boyfriend. No matter. He'll make an effort, now. _Magic carpet_ , after all.

Erik reaches into his jacket pocket, and removes a small silver flask from his pocket. He proffers it to Charles. "Scotch?"

"You are _perfect_."

"Don't forget it."

Charles gulps, gladly, at the alcohol.

This, all of this, is the stuff his dreams are made of.

 _Flying. Fucking. Carpet._

And an Erik, who is his, and only his.

And a drink.

What else could he possibly want?  
________

"Only for you," he says to Raven, "only for you."

"Thank you thank you thank you! Besides, it's not like this isn't going to work out best for you, too."

"True. But I want to make it look like I'm doing you a massive favour so you'll owe me one."

"You're so predictable, darling brother of mine. You're an awful person."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I was only joking. Still a little sensitive?"

"I suppose I feel a little stupid..."

"Well, you should! Honestly, I've never known you be so...irrational."

Charles clears his throat, and looks up at her. "I've never been in love before."

"You'd better work on that, then. He's so much hotter than anyone you've ever been out with. Don't waste this."

"I'm not taking dating advice from you..."

"It's not dating advice, it's you-advice. I know you."

"Did you see the magic carpet?"

"Magic baking tray, more like, and yes, I did. Beautiful. Hilarious. You looked like you were twelve all over again."

"So much fun. But really, I should get on..."

Raven nods. Charles presses his fingers to his temple, and, slowly, carefully, one by one, erases the memories of the lower points of today from everyone's mind. Poor Hank - he should really apologise to him, but this way, Charles thinks, will do less damage. He doesn't touch the minds of Erik or Raven. Charles thinks he may yet see the funny side in their...moment. And, he thinks, it would be wrong to just...delete such a terrible mistake from Erik's memory. Especially after he said Charles looked good angry. It might be helpful for them both to remember that.

Of course, now they'll have to have their little 'coming out' moment all over again, but, hopefully, this time, it won't be quite so...dramatic. Hopefully.  
__________

He makes Erik get up at five to go out flying on that piece of metal. Just to watch the sunrise.

"I don't mind," Erik says, "as long as you don't accuse me of loving the sunrise more than you."

Charles hits him, again. And tells him he loves him, again, for good measure.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [That Mouth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/252122) by [liveonthesun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liveonthesun/pseuds/liveonthesun)




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